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4/20/10

Writing Tip Tuesday: Different From

You've been picking up on some common errors I'm seeing a lot of lately and handling them well. How about clarifying "different from" and "different than" sometime.

I lot of people use them interchangeably and see no problem with it. I'm a nit-picker.

"Different from" is almost always the correct one because it is used for simple comparisons between two things—and that's a more common sentence structure.

Example: My book premise is different from the one that made the bestseller list.(Comparing my book with another book.)

Example: My grammar preferences are different from a second grader's.(Comparing my grammar prefs with someone else's.)

"Different than" is only acceptable when followed by a full clause.

Example: The publishing industry is different than it was twenty years ago.(You would never say "...different from it was..." although you could say "...different from the way that it was..." but that's cumbersome.)